Copyright+and+Intellectual+Property+rights

This page is for the collation of material relevant to Copyright and Intellectual property rights in the screen and media industries. Today's lesson was on Copyright and Multimedia.

Good resource here. []

Copyrights are designed to protect intellectual property rights and provide potential monetary rewards for inventiveness and hard work. Things like scanners, photocopiers and Digital Editing are technologies that make copyright a major concern. Copyright law is contained in the Commonwealth Copyright Act 1968 (Copyright Act). Creative Commons (CC) is an internationally active non-profit organization that provides free licenses for creators to use when making their work available to the public. These licenses help the creator to give permission for others to use the work in advance under certain conditions. I learn't a lot about copyrights from this lesson and realize how much we disobey the law everyday just to get a few pictures. To learn more about Copyrights and Multimedia visit [|www.smartcopying.edu.au/scw/go]

Technologies which are making copyright an issue of concern are scanners (allows for easy digitization of images) and graphic programs. Images can be posted on the Web, downloaded and saved to your hard drive. Images can also be mass distributed via e-mail all of which is possible from a desktop computer. Copyright laws aim to protect intellectual property (IP) rights and provide potential monetary rewards for inventiveness and hard work. Although the copyright holder can choose to freely distribute material, license or sell it. Materials that have no copyright are said to be in the public domain and can be used without the authors permission. Creative Commons provides an alternative licensing system so that authors, musicians and other creators can grant rights to the public to use their work without payment but still retain control over their copyright material. Schools can use Creative Commons resources such as music, film clips and photographs in their projects and teaching resources free of charge.